The Library
by chickadeedeedee
Summary: Modern!au combined with a no pokemon!au and some extra sprinkles to become a Library!au. Green makes some dumb decisions and combines a weird, miss matched cast as our main characters! Stay tuned!
1. Not the favorite

Green had spent most of his life living with his grandpa and sister. His parents were researchers who spent a lot of time traveling and being busy, and, naturally, they wanted their kids to grow up in a constant, safe environment with good schools. Which happened to be his grandpa's house.

Traveling and stuff kept Green pretty far away from his parents, physically and emotionally. Daisy, on the other hand, had spent more time with them before Green was born and remembered the time after he was born better. She was far more attached to them than he was.

She was far more heartbroken than he was when they died.

But they did. They died. They caught some weird disease from something they were researching and died a couple years later. Green was still distraught when it happened, he had gotten used to them being around, to having a his family together. Even though his parents were stuck in a hospital for most of the time.

It had been ten years since they had died, Green was 15 when it happened and now he was almost 26. Green had gotten through college and was almost done with grad school. Daisy was 29 and had recently gotten married to Bill, an awkward computer scientist with a weird accent. Green was moving back near his grandpa's place and finishing school there while he took a job with his grandpa doing sciencey research stuff.

Daisy stayed relatively close to home over the years, and now that Green had a nearby apartment it was pretty easy for them to have a nice dinner with their grandpa. Green thought it was weird that Bill hadn't come, but he assumed it wasn't his business.

They ate spaghetti and when everyone had finished Green went to clear the plates, but his grandpa waved him off and told him to sit down. When he came back from clearing the plates Professor Oak revealed his true motive for inviting them over.

"When your parents knew they were going to die, they did somethings with their will for you two," Professor Oak (aka gramps) (aka. Green's grandpa) began his speech. "Well not really will," he corrected, "-but I promised them after 10 years, when you two are older and wiser, I would give you both something."

Green perked up. Give him something? Now he was interested.

"So first." Oak turned to Daisy. "As you both know when your parents first started living together and being married, they lived here in town. And after they left they never actually sold the house." Daisy's eyes widened when it dawned on her what he was going to say next.

Professor Oak took a key out of his pocket. "So Daisy your parents left you your childhood home."

"Oh my gosh..." Tears welling in her eyes, she was smiling so widely her face could have split in to. "Thank you so much!"

"You can sell it to buy a home of your own or-"

"No way! Bill and I are definitely moving in! It'll be perfect for when we have kids," Daisy exclaimed. She looked like she had won the lottery, thankfully she wasn't crying, but she beamed with excitement and gratitude.

Green was a little frustrated because there is no way he could get something as valuable as real estate from his parents, they only had one house. He was happy for Daisy and all, but he couldn't help a small amount of bitterness from showing.

"Wait a second, what did they do with the house? What did you do with the house all these years? Was there any upkeep? Has it just been vacant?" He asked.

"Actually your parents had renters, but a couple years ago they moved and I decided not to lease it out again so it would be ready for Daisy." His grandpa smiled at Daisy, running her fingers over the key like she couldn't believe her luck. "Although I have been going by and getting it inspected and such every now and then."

Great. So apparently Daisy was everyone's favorite child. "So what else is there?" Green finally asked, it better be good after that...

"Actually Green, I'm going to need to take you somewhere to show you yours." Grandpa stood and turned to Daisy. "You'll probably want to go home and tell Bill, plus this doesn't concern you as much as the house concerned Green."

Daisy nodded and said goodbye and kissed Green on the cheek and left. Green did understand why everyone liked her more, he would have never just quietly left like that.

He followed Professor Oak to the old, tired Jeep he had spent years of childhood being driven around in. It's nice to know that something's never change, like his grandpa's refusal to change cars. Green learned how to drive in this car, and it was the only reason Green could drive manual transmission. He watched fondly as his grandpa switched gears and the scenery moved out the window.

As difficult as it was to admit, Green was glad he was back.

They arrived not too far away, in an oddly paced residential area of the nearby city. They pulled into a parking spot on the street in front of an over grown yard. _Careless house owners,_ Green thought to himself and waited for his grandpa's instruction.

"Well, here it is!" He exclaimed.

"What?"

"This," Grandpa said and gestured toward the over grown building. "This is what your parents left you!"

Green blinked. "What?"

Grandpa laughed and placed a hand hon Green's shoulder. "I know, I was surprised to, but apparently your other grandpa, your dad's dad, not me, owned this place and gave it to your dad. Your father never quite knew what to do with it, but he said 'if anyone can revive the dead it's Green!' Metaphorically of course."

Green just stared at him silently.

Green's grandpa reached into his pocket, took out a large bronze key, and shoved it into Green's hand. "Ok, well, I think you should take a look at the place yourself so you can decide what you want to do with it. Bye!" And just like that Grandpa was gone. He got into his car and drove off.

 _Crap_ , Green thought, _he was my ride._


	2. watch dog

Green unlocked the door and went inside the building. The door creaked and opened slowly inside. Green was pretty sure he heard about doors that open towards the inside of a building being a fire hazard, but it didn't matter.

The walls had a thick trim on the top and bottom of the wall made of polished and painted white wood. In between was a dirty, peeling wallpaper. It looked burgundy, but who knows if that was how it was supposed to look.

The first room he walked into was pretty straightforward. The door opened at the front, up against the left wall was a checkout counter and door, further back to the right was a stair case. And the rest was lined with shelves. Usual library.

Green took a few steps inside. The floor creaked under him, but he continued. Green wasn't an expert on trees and different types of wood and he had no idea what the shelves were made of. They were a deep brown with reddish undertones, which to him was beautiful but also every good looking wood. He ran his han over the smooth wood and looked at some of the books. They were mostly history and nonfiction.

The shelves were tall, but not too tall. And for the first time, Green looked up and for the first time noticed the white, arched ceiling.

There were sitting areas too, about three of them, Green noted at he walked around. One with a few arm chairs and a table next to the entrance, another across from the stairs and down from the counter with more room and a love seat. The next was larger and more spread out and was near the back, in a space between all the shelves where someone could quietly read among the books.

He continued exploring. He was curious about the door behind the counter and decided to check that out, until a shiny metal door caught his eye. An elevator door. It was near the stair. Convenient.

Green was curious if it worked. He didn't try it though. He didn't even press the button, it could shock him or something and he certainly didn't have a death wish.

He took the stairs instead and traveled down to the second floor. At the bottom was a wide hallway, almost big enough to be it's own room.

Green took a moment to comprehend all he had seen. Overall, the building was surprisingly structurally sound, given the age and the fact no one had been taking care of it. And it didn't look super damaged.

Actually, it was in suspiciously good shape. He flicked the light switch out of habit, and, lo and behold, lights turned on.

Now that was just impossible.

He turned them back off and noticed another light coming from his left. Green followed it.

He found himself at the entrance to the kids section. Two double doors with small blurry windows, he couldn't see through them but there was definitely a light on the other side. One deep breath, an he flung the doors open.

It took Green a moment to register everything that was going on. First, there was what seemed to be a very large German Shepard mix laying on the ground, curled up against a bean bag.

Second, there was a girl sitting on the purple bean bag, with a book in her hands. She dropped to book into her lap and froze in shock when Green opened the door.

Third, a large cart of books was behind the girl, all the books were lined up neatly by color, starting with red and ending with purple, like a rainbow.

"Great," Green sighed, smacking his forehead. "We have a hobo problem here."

"Wait! Wait!" The girl frantically stood up. "I'm not a hobo! I live around here I go to school here too! I just visit this place during the day, I thought it was abandoned and-"

"Yeah I get it," Green cut her off, he wasn't going to believe just anything, he's not an idiot. "If you go to school around here why not use the school library instead of some abandoned dump?"

"Well..." her gaze shifted the dog who was protectively standing by her ankles. "I haven't found a place yet that would allow my dog so I've been keeping him here."

Perfect. Now he had to figure out what to do with this building and do some weird side quest to get this girl and her dog to leave.

"Oh, sorry." The girl brushed her hand on the side of her skirt and held it out awkwardly. "My name is Crystal. Are you the... owner of this property?"

Green shook her hand. "I guess you could say that... I'm Green."

"... So, what now?" Crystal asked.

It was a vague question, but it sparked something in Green's mind. To be honest Green had no idea. It seemed like it would be boring, expensive, and very frustrating to rebuild this library. But something in him wanted to do it. He knew it was crazy, they had no funding from the city and a privately owned library isn't going to make much money at all... but his parents wanted him to have this.

"You ok?" Crystal asked after Green had been silent for more than a moment.

"Yeah." He nodded, snapping out of his daze. He looked around and noticed the book she dropped, somehow he hadn't noticed her putting a bookmark in and neatly putting the book on the beanbag. "Twelfth Night, by Shakespeare." Green read the title.

"Yeah!" Crystal reached down and picked up the book. "It's my favorite of his plays."

Green rolled his eyes. "Of course it is. There was a big movie based off it, right? You might as well say Romeo and Juliet."

"Yes, the movie was called She's The Man, but I read the play before I even knew any movie existed. But besides, it's not like being popular makes something worse," Crystal pointed out defensively.

Green snorted.

"Well what's your favorite Shakespeare play?" Crystal frowned at him, showing her disapproval of his reaction.

"I wouldn't say I have a favorite, but I do like King Leer," Green stated.

"So you're just biased towards tragedies?"

"I'm biased towards good plays."

"Really?" Crystal asked sarcastically. Now it's Green's turn to frown. "If you ask me the characters are rather flat in King Leer. Like, the King and his youngest daughter are supposed to be the main characters and it's as if they're barely in the play. If you're going to kill off characters, they should at least mean something to the reader."

"And Twelfth Night has much more character development," Green retorted.

"But it's more than that! It's a good story that's fun to read and watch, and it's filled with beautiful lines: 'if music be the food of love, play on.'" Crystal quoted fondly.

Green rolled his eyes, but smiled. It was nice to have an intelligent conversation about literature. For a while he wanted to be an editor, so he could read all day as a job. But instead he went into chemistry. And he loved it, but he missed literature too.

There was a pause after that, but Crystal seemed to be good at making conversation.

"So you said you owned this place, right?" She asked.

"Yeah, I inherited it. Apparently it was my grandpa's, who died and gave it to my parents who never did anything with it. And then they died and gave it to me," Green explained.

"Oh, I'm sorry-" Crystal tried to say.

"Don't be." Green shrugged. "It's been 10 years. They gave the deed to my other grandpa to keep until I was older."

"Oh..." Crystal still looked sad. Maybe it would have been better if Green cried or something, just to humor her.

Making small talk was not his strong suit. In fact he hated it. But the awkward pauses in conversation were making him uncomfortable.

"What's your dog's name?" Green asked.

"His name is Arkee." Crystal answered.

Another lull.

What now?

Green was still confused and to be honest this girl wasn't helping much. Sure she was nice, but she was probably trying to convince him not to tear the building down.

"So if, let's say, I wanted to rebuild this library, hypothetically of course, would you know about how to do that?" Green asked, because if it was easier than he thought, he might consider it.

Crystal's eyes lit up. "Hypothetically, of course, I do know some stuff, and I know an engineer who could help with the other stuff."

Green didn't even know this girl's last name, but he liked her. She might be a good resource. Especially if he was crazy enough to do this.

* * *

 **Note:** Yay for our second main character! also sorry if theres any inaccuracy with the Shakespeare stuff, i havent read that in a while and im not bothering to look it up.


	3. He's still salty

**NOTES:**

 _Sorry, I'm really bad at responding to reviews. But to clear some things up- yes this au doesn't have any pokemon, just normal animals (but don't worry, I'm still having fun with pets)._

 _The "main characters", or the ones more involved with the library and I'm going to have the story revolve around are Green, Crystal (yes I'm incapable of writing a story without crystal), Emerald, Platinum, Black, and X._

 _This au is also supposed to be like modern and taking place around nowish, but because of calendar dates the year is going to be referred to as xx26 (so Green was born in xx00, this starts in November xx26, the next year is xx27)._

 _Also, I know that they're all kinda Japanese based, but this au was made to be based in a in America, where I live. And because they're here in America, not all of them will be Japanese (in fact most of them won't be) and it's all headcanon so please don't get mad._

 _And Finally, shippings. So far no shippings are set in stone. But I know that our main characters won't be shipped with each other. The ones I'm most likely going to put in my story are originalshipping, jadeshipping, franticshipping, and tenthshipping._

 _The ones I am definitely putting in this are agencyshipping, boutiqueshipping, and entourageshipping (more of a friendly one for the entourage)._

 _I'm still deciding on all the others like mangaquest vs special jewel vs johto (no preciousmetal because I love Crystal so much and I want a more mainstream ship for her)_

 _I might make like a poll or something and put it up on the next chapter so like comment or something._

* * *

It had been a month since Green officially declared himself insane and started working on the library. It took a couple weeks of him going back and forth, but eventually he decided to begin some crazy project that wouldn't go anywhere and would bankrupt a couple of young adults in the process.

Of course Crystal was one of the things pushing him to do it. He still wasn't sure why, besides the whole dog thing.

As it turned out, Crystal was far more legitimate that Green had even considered. She is 22, just started taking classes for her masters, and getting her teaching license. She was currently employed (paid via scholarship of course) as a ballerina in her school's dance company. She was smart, nice, a little bit naive, but at the same time very skeptical. A blatant contradiction, but accurate considering she could go from oblivious to everything and having genuine faith in humanity, to planning for for every impossible worst-case scenario she could think of, in a fraction of a second.

And back home in... wherever Crystal was from, she apparently did a lot of volunteer work, which gave her a pretty vast knowledge of publicly funded organizations and how they run. For example a library.

Volunteer work is also apparently where she met Emerald, or Rald as she called him. Emerald was 19 yet barely 5 feet tall. He was pretty flippant, but never around Crystal. He treated her like an idol, or mother, or something. Emerald did a lot of work on the lighting, making sure the electrical system was set up and working safely.

Green and Crystal did some redecorating. They tore down over grown weeds, mowed the grass, painted walls, and did everything they could to make the place look appealing. It was a pretty good job too, they wanted to pace to look half decent before an inspector came, and its not the building had any real structural damage as far as they could see.

Crystal kept trying to talk to the mayor about the library, but hadn't had much luck. It seemed that the guy was never available. So for right now they had to pay for everything out of pocket.

Just recently Crystal had brought in some new furniture, couches and chairs and stuff like that to replace the old rotting ones. Green had no idea where the money for all this came, but he didn't really care.

Green wasn't surprised to see Crystal sitting on the couch when he walked in, considering she was almost always there and probably deserved to sit down.

However, he was surprised to see a young man with spikes black hair sitting next to her and talking with her. Someone Green hadn't seen in a long time.

Crystal was talking to the guy and laughing when she saw Green entering the building. "Green!" She waved and called over to him. "Come over here."

Green was hesitant at first, but they already saw him so he couldn't just run out. He sat down in a chair opposite to the couch they were on.

"Green this is-"

"Red." Green finished her sentence.

Crystal looked shocked. "Do- do you know each other?" She looked curiously at Red.

"You bet!" Red exclaimed, way too enthusiastically. "Green and I went to school with each other for years, we were pretty good friends too. How have you been Green?" Red asked, giving his classic, heartwarming smile.

"Fine," Green responded quickly. "But I do need to tell something to Crystal... Privately, so if you don't mind-" Green grabbed Crystal's arm and dragged her across the room.

"Hey- ow!" She said, rubbing her arm after he let go. "What's going on?"

"Why is Red here?" Green interrogated quietly so Red wouldn't over hear.

"I met him at the park, mentioned the library, he was interested, had actually helpful ideas, and I brought him here. Why?" Crystal explained.

"He needs to go."

"Does this have to do with the fact you too went to school together?"

"... From kindergarten to senior year of high school Red was always the best at everything. I was good at sports, he was 'the best our coach had ever seen'. I dedicated myself to getting perfect grades, he ended up valedictorian instead," Green grumbled. "I could go on, but I think I've made my point: I don't like him."

"Wow," Crystal responded. "That's quite a rivalry. But Red said you too were friends! Good friends!"

"Yeah because he was better at that too." Green frowned. "You know, I quit football because of him. And basketball. And baseball. The only sport I was doing by high school was track. Which consequently, he joined because he wanted 'to hang out with his buddy who he hardly sees,'" Green mocked. "The only thing I got all to myself was chess club and that's chess club!"

Crystal was pleasantly surprised, "you played football?"

"In middle school," Green clarified. "The only position I played well enough to play in high school was quarterback and Red was an even better one."

"Oh right, American football..." She slouched.

"Why did you call it- nevermind," Green dismissed it. "You need to get rid of Red."

"Why don't you try just talking to him first."

"No."

"Sorry." Crystal smiled and shook her head. "I shouldn't have phrased that as a question: talk to him." Crystal turned on her heels and pranced back over to the couch.

Green followed her but not after thinking a bad word that would probably get him scolded by Crystal if he said it.

"Sorry about that, Red," Crystal greeted him and sat back down where she had been before.

"Oh it's no problem!" Red responded cheerfully.

Crystal shot a look at Green who took it as a cue to speak.

"So, Red," Green began. "What are you doing these days? Did you keep doing sports?"

"Nah," Red smiled and waved it off, "I got a scholarship for football at college, but one day I just realized that I wanted more from life than fame for being on a team!" Red told them. The story didn't sound very rehearsed and it did sound genuine. Because Red would never lie or show off because he was perfect. "So I got my degree, but afterwards I took up some internships in different service careers to see what I wanted, and now, I'm a firefighter!"

"Wow, that's so awesome!" Crystal enthused, obviously captured by Red's good spirit. "And you work for the city?"

"Yup."

"Do you know the mayor?"

"Actually I do! We talk and he likes to use me as a 'representation' of how the firefighters are doing."

"Do you think you could convince him to help us?"

Green's head snapped up. Oh. She was trying to use Red for his connections to help the library. That's all. Red will be gone soon enough.

Unless he is so helpful she keeps him around.

"With the library?" Red asked, Crystal nodded quickly. "Yeah I can talk to him about it, but I can't guarantee he'll say yes."

"Oh thank you so much!" Crystal squealed. She continued to thank Red, who kept saying it's nothing. Green sank deeper into the armchair and sulked.

His conversational savior came in the form of a blonde clanging up the stairs.

"Hey Crys?" Emerald peaked above the railing. "I've been messing with the fuse box, did the lights do anything crazy?"

"No, not the lights. But not everything is plugged in, do you want some help?" Crystal asked.

"Nah," Emerald responded, strolling over to sit next to Crystal on the couch. "I wasn't really experimenting, just messing around I and I wanted to know if it caused any problems for you."

Crystal had to scoot a bit closer to Red to make room for Emerald, but it was a full sized sofa and they all fit fine.

Red was a painfully open book, the way he looked at Emerald, eyebrows softly pushing together in confusion and the way the corners of his smile twitched. He obviously hadn't met Emerald yet.

"Hey, I don't think we we're introduced." Red smiled and waved across the couch to the short blonde boy. "I'm Red."

"Emerald." He introduced himself swiftly and resumed conversation with Crystal. "What was your policy on the blowtorch again? I didn't use it... I'm just curious."

Red looked over and made eye-contact with Green. His eyebrows were knitted together and asked a question his mouth didn't. That's when Green realized that if Red hadn't met Emerald before, he probably didn't know the boy's age or something. Considering Emerald wasn't even 5 feet tall.

Green tried to mouth, "he's 19. Just really short. Don't mention it."

But Red only looked more confused and mouthed back, "what?"

Green shook his head. And tried to subtly mouth "nineteen," while flashing 10 and the 9 fingers. And then "short" with a lowering hand motion.

Red made an "O" expression and nodded to show he understood. Green just tried one last time to mouth "don't say anything" and shook his head. Red nodded again.

Green turned back to Crystal and Emerald, making sure they hadn't noticed. A brief moment of eye contact with Crystal showed that she noticed. She definitely noticed.

But she didn't say anything. So Green let out a sigh of relief. She wouldn't mention it in front of Emerald. Or Red. She'd probably pull him aside later, not to reprimand him, just to let him know she saw and maybe apologize for forgetting to tell Red herself.


End file.
